Federal, States urge to fund polytechnics education

By Deborah Oladejo, Osogbo

The Chairman, Governing Council Osun State College of Technology (OSCOTECH), Esa-Oke, Prince Diran Odeyemi, has urged the Federal and State Governments to fund polytechnic and technology educations for economic development of the country.

Fielding questions from journalists at a Newspoint programme of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in Osogbo, Odeyemi noted that no nation can develop without given priority to polytechnic and technological institutions.

He said the government should look beyond degree acquired from university, but focused and encouraged polytechnic education,which is capable of turning the nation around.

He emphasised that polytechnic education is the only institution where skills and acquired knowledge are obtainable.

Speaking on the skill acquisitions acquired at OSCOTECH, the Chairman said two skills is compulsory which is part of NBTE accreditation programme , “every student at OND must acquired two skills or trades that they can practice outside their certificate and at HND  two skills and by the time they do OND and HND in OSCOTECH they must have been qualified in four skills of their own choice.”

Odeyemi enumerated various innovations made by the institution as follows:

“We have bluetooth control fan, that can be controlled by Bluetooth or by GSM. We have generator that is GSM controlled and so if you are not even in the country and to give people the impression that you are around from there you can send message to the generator and your house can be on light for some time before you off it.

“This has a dual purpose, particularly in the era of security threat, we noticed that some people in an attempt to go down and off their generator they kidnap them, you don’t need to leave your room to put on and put off your generator you just send text message.

“Also, we have smart home automation,  this is now global, your air conditione and security can be controlled. We have eletric jack, weight control wheel barrow, biometric attendance, Rfid smart security gate, programmable load shedding system with remote unit, android based fan control system, access restricted integrated power monitoring and control system and  smart traffic light, among others.”

The OSCOTECH chairman then appealed to the alumni association of the institution to come to the aid of some less privileged students who are willing to read but lacks financial capability to fund their education.